Knocking Them Off in New Hampshire

New Hampshire's quadrennial tourist boom that ended Tuesday produced more nays than yeas:

Nay to California's troglodytic former governor, Ronald Reagan, who was unable, by a little over 1000 votes, to win his duel with the ever-vulnerable Gerald Ford in one of the nation's most conservative Republican constituencies;

*Nay to Sen. Birch Bayh (D.-Ind.), who in a distant third-place finish, with 16 per cent of the vote, failed on his promise to press Rep. Morris K. Udall (D.-Ariz.) for second and proved that fashionably-late appearances at political cocktail parties like New Hampshire's aren't always so productive; and,

*Nay to both former Oklahoma Senator Fred Harris and Sargent Shriver, who, with 11 and 9 per cent of the Democratic ballots, respectively, became darkhorses, at best, for the nod in Madison Square Garden in July--Shriver's malapropos Biblical invocation that, "Like Lazarus, I've risen from the experts' graves," notwithstanding.

Unclear as yet was whether winner Jimmy Carter, the former Georgia governor who finished with 30 per cent of the vote, can maintain his delegate lead in upcoming primary contests against the full field of Democratic aspirants--including conservatives George Wallace and Sen. Henry Jackson (D.-Wash.).

But as the candidates and their entourages siphoned southward into the Bay State for their next showdown Tuesday, it became clear that the earliest-ever presidential primary in Massachusetts would end in an inconclusive muddle. There are several things to keep an eye on:

* Can Jackson, the "respectable" anti-busing candidate who has been stumping the non-liberal, industrial centers of Springfield, Lowell, Lawrence, Fall River, Chicopee, New Bedford and Worcester--as well as not-so-blue-collar enclaves such as the Harvard Faculty Club--deny Wallace a plurality?

* Will the unions, now split between Jackson and Bayh, get out the vote and curtail rank-and-file defections to Wallace?

* Can Wallace, whose "Trust the People" billboard is plastered all over Southie, Somerville, East Boston, Everett and the North End, get his own diehard vote out to the polls in such areas? and,

* Can Carter, now under attack from the liberal candidates and Jackson, as well as the press, minimize damage to the momentum that he hopes to carry into his self-proclaimed, do-or-die hornlocking with Wallace in Florida March 9?

Interesting to watch, too, will be the media and advertising blitz the candidates will direct in the next three days at voters in a populous, urban state--unlike New Hampshire--where handshaking and coffee klatsches have their limits.